Welcome to the Online Archive of the Old PublicEye.Org Website

Please remember that this is an archive of an older website for researchers, and it is not being updated. Therefore, much of the material here is not current.
Much like any library archive, it is "out-of-date." Brick and mortar libraries do not toss out older resource materials, they archive them. That is what we have done here.

UNdoing Reproductive Freedom: Christian Right NGOs Target the United Nations

The Christian Right increasingly seeks to restrict women's reproductive
rights internationally through its growing number of nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) with consultative status at the United Nations.
Believing their power to be enhanced by the election of an anti-choice
president in 2000, these anti-choice NGOs have increased their presence at
the UN. They oppose UN programs and platforms promoting access to abortion
and contraception, and they promote an abstinence-only family planning
curriculum worldwide. Using the access to a few official delegations
and activities offered by their consultative status, the NGOs pursue their
goals by attempting to stonewall the deliberative process of committees,
organizing and funding an international caucus composed of other
conservative religious entities and governments to mobilize opposition more
broadly within the UN.

Working through the UN constitutes a shift in the history of
conservative Christian evangelical organizations that historically limited
themselves abroad to missionary work. Influenced by other sectors of the
Right that oppose the existence of the United Nations as a threatening "One
World Government," they have executed a Trojan Horse strategy of
infiltrating the UN under the guise of reforming the institution, resulting
in prolonged negotiations that signal to their supporters influence
far greater than is actually the case.

Introduction

In June 2004, U.S. officials brought along a special guest to a regional
United Nations (UN) conference on population issues held in Puerto Rico. It
was Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ). Smith, one-time head of the New Jersey
Right to Life Committee, promotes himself as a champion for international
human rights and a strong opponent of abortion. "Anti-life strategies which
rely on deception and hyperbole… are now being deployed with a vengeance in
the developing world," he once proclaimed.1

A member of Congress for over twenty years, Smith took advantage of his
presence at the regional UN conference - the biannual Economic Council
for Latin America and the Caribbean - to directly lobby delegates against
language that he felt hinted at abortion rights. His target was UN support
for "reproductive health," a phrase that was first adopted during the
International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo a decade
earlier and that has since become UN boilerplate. The Congressman wanted to
revert to the pre-Cairo language of "family planning."

Although Smith was a guest and not a diplomat at the conference, that
didn't stop him from bypassing usual protocol and contacting the presidents
of Uruguay and Guatemala, asking them to support the language reversion.
His message, faxed on Congressional stationery, urged these heads of state
to instruct their delegations to vote against "direct attacks on the right
to life, family rights, and national sovereignty" at the
conference.2

Smith's direct lobbying of foreign leaders was a godsend for anti-choice
NGOs - an elected official who was willing to take their agenda abroad.
Indeed, Smith has been a friend and ally to groups such as National Right
to Life Committee and Concerned Women for America.

Efforts by Christian Right groups and individuals like Smith to
influence UN policies have increased substantially in the last ten years
with eleven U.S. anti-choice groups becoming NGOs since 2000. Many within
the Christian Right see the abortion struggle as a cosmic battle between
the forces of good and evil. To this sector abortion is not only a sin, but
women's control of their reproductive lives is seen as threatening the
preservation of family and society.3 This worldview raises the
stakes of
issues like abortion to a very high level in believers' eyes, and
contributes its share to the dualistic or "black/white" thinking that
dominates the reproductive rights debate today.

The reach of this evangelical/political movement stretches beyond the
issue of abortion to take on what its leaders imply to be a major threat to
our culture: the political and sexual empowerment of women and girls. While
some on the Christian Right insist that their sincere intent is to reduce
human suffering by suppressing sinful sexual behavior, it is important to
assess the consequences of their global campaigns. Demanding
everyone's abstinence before the marriage and faithfulness after it is
proving disastrous, both at home and abroad. The Center for Reproductive
Rights reports that globally,

"78,000 women die every year from unsafe abortion, a statistic that
could be virtually eliminated by the provision of appropriate health
information and services and law reform efforts."4

The U.S. Christian Right is interfering with vital public health
projects in the United States and at the UN - harming the very people they
seek to save.

A small group of U.S. Christian Right organizations has inserted itself
in the international arena in four major ways. They have created a vocal
antiabortion, anti-reproductive health presence at the UN, both by gaining
consultative status as NGOs and through Bush administration appointments to
official US delegations, special UN meetings, and special sessions. They
have succeeded in publicizing their frame that the right to life is a basic
human right and that advocates for abortion access and reproductive health
are calling for illegitimate, special rights. They have cultivated
hostility to the UN among the U.S. "pro-life" community. And they
have pressured Bush to overturn Congressional decisions by refusing to fund
some international health programs.

Going Global with Anti-Choice Politics

Many conservative Christian-based organizations find going global with
an anti-choice message to be a comfortable fit. A series of factors have
influenced this move. First, many faith communities have a long history and
ongoing practice of missionary work, both at home and abroad. Much of this
activity is direct service delivery. They interpret performing "good works"
as a type of Christian ministry. The opportunity to bring the message of
Christ to non-Christians, or to evangelize, provides motivation for acting
globally. In the case of the Christian Right, this message carries their
staunchly conservative values abroad.

As early as the mid-1980s, Beverly LaHaye's Concerned Women for America
(CWA), a group heavily involved in the U.S. "culture wars," protested the
persecution of a Christian poet in the Soviet Union and called attention to
the needs of Nicaraguans who lived in refugee camps in Costa
Rica.5 Choosing these projects was politically savvy, since they
appealed to a still thriving anti-communist impulse as well as a deep
concern within the
Christian Right around issues of religious freedom. By 1999, CWA realized
the potential of generating a framework for its international work.

A second factor has been the resurgence of conservative evangelical
involvement in the political sphere. While eschewing politics through most
of the 20th century, evangelicals are now recognized as one of the major
contributors to the rise of the political Right6 over the last
40 years. Early leaders of this shift into politics, like James Dobson of
Focus on the Family and Tim and Beverly LaHaye, are among those at the
forefront of Christian Right international work.

Another reason to work at the UN is the opportunity to increase an
organization's political power. The UN is a meeting place for powerful
people from around the world. This convergence motivates conservative
organizations to spend considerable resources to travel extensively to
gatherings hosted in New York and around the world. Because of their
official status as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) at the UN, groups
can work directly with State Department officials in the U.S. delegation,
particularly now that anti-choice UN critic John Bolton is ambassador. This
has allowed for greater incorporation of once marginal political groups
from the Right. At the same time, the Bush administration has implemented
conservative elements into policies like the President's Emergency Plan for
AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. These moves signal sympathy with socially
conservative positions and provide reinforcement for the work of
conservative U.S.-based groups that seek to do international work.

Finally, an extensive network of health and feminist organizations
across the globe has successfully advocated for women's sexual and
reproductive autonomy for decades, in both local and global arenas. The
global women's health movement has made substantial gains in guaranteeing
access to health services for women and girls, including reproductive
services, and the UN has increased its commitment to women and children.
These impressive gains have attracted organizations that oppose abortion
and comprehensive sexuality education, igniting a small but vigorous
backlash movement at the UN.

Home-Grown Groups, Global Missions

To set the context for the growth of conservative groups at the UN, it
is helpful to observe that the U.S. Christian Right has long maintained
global activity in other arenas. Missionary work in foreign lands has been
a staple of many U.S. churches. In line with their missionary orientation,
Christian Right groups directly support grassroots efforts in other
countries that promote a "culture of life," a philosophy with opposition to
abortion at its hub. These groups include: American Life League, Concerned
Women for America and its LaHaye Institute, Focus on the Family, Heartbeat
International, The Justice Foundation, National Right to Life Committee,
and United Families International.

Such organizations have maintained their presence abroad by opening
overseas chapters or offices, affiliating with local organizations, or by
disseminating their materials. Beyond these attempts at making inroads,
they have supported foreign organizations and have helped develop local
electoral strategies. For instance, National Right to Life Committee's
Olivia Gans claimed that her group, with support from American Life League,
helped launch 200 local groups and elect 12 anti-choice members of
parliament in Sweden in only six years.7 As she put it:

"Early in the 1990s a young man named Michal Oscarson sought out NRLC's
support for a study project that allowed a few volunteers to come from
Sweden and spend time here in America with NRLC staff and affiliates with a
view to building a strong and effective prolife movement in that country.
In the six years that have followed that venture Ja til Livet has
grown to 200 chapters throughout Sweden. Recently they helped to elect 12
new pro-life parliamentarians, including Michal Oscarson
himself.8"

For those wanting to take special anti-abortion missionary trips, Human
Life International (HLI), the organization of hard-line conservative Roman
Catholic priests with worldwide reach, offers the chance to proselytize
abroad. HLI has established satellite offices in more than 50 countries
including Kenya, South Korea, Chile, and Russia. The missionaries export
anti-choice strategies already in use in the United States: forming crisis
pregnancy and post-abortion healing centers, fighting sexuality education
and establishing "chastity programs" in schools, and training priests how
to organize against abortion.

The U.S.-based "Silver Ring Thing," targeted to adolescents, is a
Christian abstinence sexuality education program, and its home base, John
Guest Evangelical Team, is attempting to spread overseas. It encourages
students to take virginity pledges and wear a silver ring as a symbol of
their commitment to abstinence until marriage. A recipient of more than $1
million in federal faith-based funding since 2002, the Silver Ring Thing
lost its government funding in August 2005 after an ACLU lawsuit. Based in
the United States, the Silver Ring Thing has a presence in South Africa and
aims to reach the majority of teenagers there by 2010.9

Another well-known group with extensive international programming, Focus
on the Family, has produced a controversial abstinence-only curriculum, "No
Apologies, The Truth about Life, Love and Sex." "No Apologies" can be found
in many of the 150 countries where Focus has a presence. In South Africa,
for example, both the government and independent school administrators have
invited Focus to train educators in how to teach the curriculum. In
Ethiopia, the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church offered his extensive
network of churches to help promote the abstinence-only curriculum. Focus
claims to have reached 1 million teens worldwide with "No
Apologies."10 Collectively, conservative anti-abortion groups
bring such international experience to their work at the UN.

Christian Right, Old Right and the UN

Some of the anti-choice NGOs that are gravitating to the UN have been
influenced in their views on that international body by the Old Right,
which looks on the UN as a dangerous "One World Government."11
According to these critics, the UN is a global government that threatens
America's freedoms and its very sovereignty, requiring the United States to
participate in, and pay for, programs that they see its people do not
support.

Despite the fact that the United States wields great power at the UN
through a variety of mechanisms, critics such as Jesse Helms, Phyllis
Schlafly, and John Ashcroft continue to claim the UN weakens American power
abroad. For instance, in 1997 Schlafly's Eagle Forum produced a video,
"Global Governance, the Quiet War Against American Independence," which
takes aim at UN treaties, conferences and resolutions. Using the 1989 UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child as an example, Schlafly claims,
"[T]hese treaties involve setting up a new global bureaucracy that would
have some kind of obnoxious control over American citizens."

Christian Right popular culture can sometimes mirror anti-UN sentiment.
For example, the Anti-Christ in Christian conservative Tim LaHaye's
bestselling Left Behind series of novels is a former Secretary
General of the UN.

Despite their skepticism about the UN as an institution, over the past
five years socially conservative groups at the UN have grown in number.
This flocking to the UN appears to be, in part, a response to the influence
and achievements of progressive women's groups with official NGO status.
Conservative NGOs are increasingly engaging in more aggressive and
disruptive diplomacy by securing spots on official delegations or as
"special guests," with delegations from the United States and some Latin
American countries. These guests even conduct their own wildcard diplomacy,
as Rep. Smith has demonstrated. Their engagement with the United Nations
does not signal a newfound respect for that body among Christian Right
groups. Rather, conservative NGOs have made the pragmatic decision to take
the fight against reproductive freedom into the den of their perceived
enemy.

By signing on as NGOs, U.S. anti-abortion groups purport to offer up
their expertise to the UN. However, many of the conservative NGOs
identified in this report hold critical, even disdainful, opinions
of UN programs and of the institution itself.

Steven Mosher, president of the HLI-supported Population Research
Institute, has called the UN-initiated Global Fund for AIDS "the global
fund for abortion, prostitution and the homosexual agenda."12
Susan Roylance, a founder of United Families International, explains that
it is the dangerous threat of the UN, and not its legitimacy as an
international
body, that compels the Christian Right's engagement:

I do not believe family policies should be formulated in the
international arena….We must become involved to protect our families from
those who would "re-engineer" the social structures of the
world.13

Although her organization works at the UN, a spokesperson for the
Beverly LaHaye Institute at Concerned Women for America rides the wave of
recent criticism of the UN's inefficiencies when she says:

Sincere women of faith within the mainline churches are being duped into
thinking that by endorsing the UN they are helping the Great Commission of
Christ to go into all the world, spreading the good news and healing the
sick. Instead, their resources and influence are going to an institution
that is often ineffective in providing relief to the suffering and
oppressed. Even worse, scandal and unethical practices riddle the United
Nations.14

Janice Crouse, also from the LaHaye Institute, is another example of a
Christian Right international activist who is similarly disdainful of the
UN. Former speechwriter for George H.W. Bush, author and public
speaker Crouse has been a vocal representative of CWA at the UN and an
official U.S. delegate at UN conferences. Yet she has said,

The U.N. is actively anti-American; both the Security Council and the
General Assembly work to thwart American interests…. Literally
billions of dollars have been squandered in misguided utopian
efforts that failed to accomplish the stated goals or were misdirected into
the hands of corrupt officials through the U.N.'s poor management, cronyism
or support for harsh dictators and ruthless regimes.15

Participating in UN activities as a hostile NGO is a "Trojan Horse"
strategy, according to Jennifer Butler, former UN liaison for the NGO
Presbyterian Church USA and author of Born Again: The Christian Right
Globalized. About these conservative NGOs she notes, "By infiltrating
the system of an organization they oppose, they hope to stall, influence,
and even undermine its work from within."16

The conservative leaders' unfavorable comments are reminiscent of Sen.
Jesse Helms' fear that the UN is indeed a "One World" government. In 2000
Helms appeared before the UN Security Council where he claimed to speak for
"many Americans" when he said,

They see the UN aspiring to establish itself as the central authority of
a new international order of global laws and global governance. This is an
international order the American people will not countenance, I guarantee
you.17

Helms, who authored the 1973 Helms Amendment that prohibits spending
federal money on abortions abroad, is now retired but is remembered as
someone who combined a nationalist resistance to multi-lateral agreements
with a fierce advocacy for traditional gender roles.

For their work at the UN, conservative NGOs receive substantial media
attention from the Christian media, and they can reach large audiences.
These TV, radio, Internet and print media comprise a communications network
generally ignored by liberals and progressives. They criticize the UN from
an anti-One World Government perspective while transmitting a "culture of
life" philosophy at the same time.

Showdown at the UN

Not-for-profit groups have participated in UN activities since its
founding in 1946 when 40 organizations signed on to be NGOs. Such groups
are playing an increasing role at the United Nations, with over 2700 groups
now holding consultative status on economic and social issues.18
Although the largest social and economic NGO presence is liberal, socially
conservative forces, often originating in the United States, continue to
increase their presence. A review of the U.S.-based NGOs that gained UN
consultative status over the past 35 years reveals that in the early years
nearly all the registered NGOs interested in women's health issues were
liberal or centrist. Among the hundreds of liberal and progressive women's
NGOs at the UN, a few dozen are U.S. based advocacy groups. By contrast, 12
NGOs opposed to abortion or comprehensive sexuality education have gained
consultative status since the Cairo and Beijing UN conferences in 1994. All
of them are associated with the U.S. Christian Right.

As Jennifer Butler has documented, battles over reproductive justice at
the UN are being fought over key phrases in UN resolutions and policy
recommendations.19 For instance, when progressive women's groups
successfully replaced "population control" with "reproductive rights" at
the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo,
it signaled a shift in policy emphasis from family planning to women's
rights. This prompted a backlash from conservative forces that viewed the
language as a slippery slope towards increased access to abortion
worldwide. Conservative NGOs are also fighting against any recognition of
gay rights - including blocking LGBT organizations' access to the UN - and
disputing the value of comprehensive sexuality education.

United Families International has published a Pro-Family Negotiating
Guide intended to challenge pro-choice and standard human rights
language at every level of UN activity. With great specificity, author
Susan Roylance suggests specific wording to support, oppose, or modify
existing UN document language as a tactic for inserting anti-abortion and
"pro-family" concepts. For instance, she includes the following phrases as
those "which could be interpreted to include abortion:" "reproductive
health services," "primary health care," "safe motherhood," and "emergency
obstetric care" and suggests aggressive lobbying for their
removal.20

Evangelical Protestant groups such as Concerned Women for America and
the Family Research Council take their cues from their better-established
Roman Catholic relative at the UN, the Vatican/Holy See. The Vatican has
been, at least until recently, the single most influential abortion
opponent at the UN. This level of influence may be attributed, at least in
part, to its special "permanent observer" status - held by no other NGO -
which gives it more access and influence, as well as to its longer history
of
participating in NGO activities. The Vatican was able to mobilize
opposition to the gains of the 1994 Cairo population conference in time for
the UN's women's conference in Beijing the very next year.
U.S.-based Catholics for a Free Choice, which monitors the Vatican's
influence in opposing reproductive rights, has been leading a campaign
since 1999 to challenge the Vatican's special status, calling for a
"See Change."21

Gaining consultative status as an NGO at the UN is an involved process
which, when successful, gives an organization access privileges to official
delegations and activities. When Human Life International (HLI), was denied
official recognition at the UN (due to its attacks on Islam and hostility
towards UN goals), it created the Catholic Family and Human Rights
Institute, or C-Fam. Headed by Austin Ruse, C-Fam has become one of the
most prominent American anti-abortion organizations working at the United
Nations, despite its non-consultative status. HLI also circumvents its UN
exclusion by means of its anti-abortion think tank, Population Research
Institute, led by Steven Mosher. C-Fam issues a UN-related fax message to
its constituents every Friday. Ruse has used the faxes to expose the "dirty
laundry" of the UN and brag about C-Fam's ability to disrupt UN activity.

Such groups work both alone and in "Family Rights" coalitions, sometimes
forming seemingly unlikely interfaith alliances. Shared beliefs connect
people with similar views on traditional families and the role of women,
whether Christian or not. C-Fam and similar organizations with ties to the
Vatican/Holy See, Ruse says, consider countries such as Sudan, Libya, Iraq,
Iran, and other moderate and hard-line governments as "allies" in the
battle against abortion and homosexuality. Ruse explains the effectiveness
of stonewalling in an institution where committee work runs on consensus:

"We don't need them all; we need only a few [member states]… We
establish a permanent UN pro-family bloc of twelve states. And upon these
[conservative delegates] we lavish all of our attention.22"

Ruse has learned how to work within the system at the UN, sometimes
playing by the rules for NGOs and other advocates and from time to time
flouting them. He has boasted about what he sees as his notoriety among
progressive groups:"

"We attended all of the women's meetings and essentially took them over.
Memos were going back from the conference in New York to governments in the
European Union that radical fundamentalists had taken over the meeting, and
that was us.23"

In 2006 Ruse became president of The Culture of Life Foundation and
Institute in Washington, signaling his interest in directly lobbying
Congress and federal agencies on behalf of conservative Catholics. Ruse
remains president of C-FAM, which still issues "Friday faxes" and continues
to watchdog the UN, but his move to Washington has given Ruse the chance to
flex his muscles in the D.C. ring.24

Beginning after the Cairo conference in 1994 but intensifying since
2000, groups like Concerned Women for America, National Right to Life
Committee, United Families International, and the Mormon-supported World
Family Policy Center intensively monitor the planning schedule of
international gatherings sponsored by the UN, prepare lobbying strategies
for each event, and participate - sometimes with large contingents. As a
backlash effort, such anti-choice NGOs principally target events on women's
issues, but they also try to influence policies related to children,
families, population, the environment, and human rights.

Parallel to NGO work at the UN, a "pro-family" movement led by members
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) has emerged.
The World Family Policy Center at Brigham Young University builds influence
through its annual forums for UN delegates, ambassadors, and religious
leaders from around the world on how WFPC sees UN policies affecting the
family.25

The Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society, a "pro-family"
organization in Rockford, IL headed by Alan Carlson, was closely involved
in the planning of what the center predicted would be a major international
conference, the Doha International Conference for the Family. This event
may have looked like a UN-sponsored event, but it was organized separately
and designed specifically to promote a "pro-family" agenda. Held in
November of 2004, Doha had as its mission to protect the "natural family"
as the fundamental unit of society. Billed as an international conference
like Beijing or Cairo, Doha was independent of the UN. Its explicit
anti-choice focus attracted over one thousand participants, but this was
much smaller than UN conferences, despite several preliminary regional
events.

The Doha conference drew on the common values of conservative
Christians, Roman Catholics, and Muslims, and was held in the capital of
the wealthy Emirate of Qatar. It involved a year of planning that included
regional conferences in Europe, Asia, and Latin America hosted by the
Howard Center.

After the conference, the government of Qatar put forth a conservative
resolution on the family to the UN General Assembly that was accepted
without a vote - a little like reading a document into the Congressional
Record to give it recognition. What is notable is the attempt to associate
an explicitly "pro-family" event with the United Nations. A number of
delegates subsequently disassociated themselves from the resolution,
generally citing the omission of language, previously accepted at
international levels, recognizing that family structure can take various
forms.26

The government of Qatar founded the Doha International Institute for
Family Studies and Development in 2006, led by the previous director of
the World Family Policy Center, Richard Wilkins.

Doha was privately organized and funded, but only about 1,000 people
attended, a small turnout considering the efforts to organize through
regional conferences and the level of international backing. The Doha
conference nonetheless reflects an important development: a conservative
international interfaith coalition using the UN as a vehicle for its own
agenda, but its lasting influence on the international scene remains to be
seen.27

When other nations hold conservative views, U.S. Christian Right groups
laud an international coalition that reflects their own values. When it is
in their interests, however, anti-choice NGOs accuse Western states of
imposing their values on developing nations. In 2005 a coalition of liberal
NGOs brought suit against Colombia for its prohibition on abortion, and
Austin Ruse called the move "sexual imperialism."28

Impact of the Bush Administration

Having failed to dismantle Roe v. Wade completely, the Bush
Administration has sought other means to consolidate support among its
socially conservative base. Providing access to the international arena may
distract these anti-choice activists from - or soften their disappointment
with - the Administration's domestic track record.

The Bush administration has been actively engaged in leaving its stamp
on international reproductive health. Although multiple campaigns for
women's health have made great strides around the world, under Bush, U.S.
intervention has worsened global women's health disparities. In 2001, he
reinstated the "global gag rule" that had reigned during the
administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, which requires any
organization applying for U.S. funds to agree neither to counsel about
nor provide women with abortions (see box this page).29 But that
was only the starting point. Showing the same disdain for collaboration
with
other countries that informs his foreign policy as a whole, Bush enlisted
the help of evangelical Protestant and conservative Roman Catholic
organizations to disrupt the diplomacy needed to craft solutions to
international crises in population growth, AIDS/HIV, and the needless
deaths and debility resulting from inadequate reproductive health care.

If reinstating the global gag rule was Bush's early offering to the
anti-choice cause on the international level, refusing to ratify the United
Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW) was a major gift. Because this international
convention opposing discrimination against women includes human rights
language like "access to health care services, including those related to
family planning," U.S. anti-choice groups used the opportunity to claim it
would lead to the right to an abortion.30 Their success in
preventing the United States from signing on to CEDAW - created by the UN
in 1979 - reflects the ability of these groups to maintain a long-term
focus on curtailing women's rights. The treaty, "is like the Equal Rights
Amendment on steroids," quipped Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America
in 2002,
describing her opposition.31 CEDAW remains unratified by the
United States.

While its primary focus has been on restricting abortion, the religious
Right has broadened its international reach to include not only moral
attacks on contraception, sexuality education, and homosexuality but has
also joined with some feminist groups to battle sex
trafficking.32

Like conservative NGOs, challenging language that in any way is
suggestive of reproductive health or choice has become a major
preoccupation of the Bush Administration at the United Nations. Bush
representatives repeatedly tried to weaken a unanimous resolution on the
fundamental right to health by pressuring for the word "services" to be
deleted from the phrase "health care services," claiming that it was a code
word for abortion.33

In promoting sexual abstinence for adolescents, the Bush administration
and its allies attack conventional language referring to reproductive
health care. They fought one such battle at the UN Special Session on
Children in 2002 and succeeded in removing a description of comprehensive
sexuality education. The phrase "comprehensive sexuality education" is a
lightning rod for the Christian Right in the United States. To them the
phrase signals morally abhorrent alternatives to abstinence-only sex
education. In their eyes comprehensive sexuality education can only lead to
many social problems, including increased sexual activity among adolescents
and the spread of sexually transmitted infections.

At the UN high level meeting on HIV/AIDS in June 2006 in New York City,
George W. Bush packed the U.S. delegation headed by his wife with senior
advisors from the Christian Right.34 Bush's delegation succeeded
in weakening UN support for proven HIV harm reduction strategies like
needle
exchange and in avoiding specific reference to target populations like
commercial sex workers. But according to an NGO observer, few conservative
groups attended, and both PEPFAR and the Bush administration's emphasis on
abstinence-until-marriage perspective were criticized by other nations at
the gathering.

The strength of the final declaration was diminished, not so much by
challenges to language, but by the assembly's unwillingness to be more
ambitious in its commitments to fighting HIV/AIDS.

Even when the Bush Administration fails to change the content of
international declarations, the power of the purse gives the United States
considerable influence over many international programs. In 2003 and again
in 2005, the U.S. House of Representatives blocked $500 million in
international family planning funds destined for the United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA), falsely claiming that the funds would go to
Chinese women aborting pregnancies to comply with China's one family, one
child population policy.35 In 2002, the United States also froze
$3 million in aid to the World Health Organization, because the UN agency
conducts research on safe abortion techniques.

A Bumpy Road

Efforts to insert an anti-choice platform at the UN have been uneven. In
2001, when Bush overruled then Secretary of State Colin Powell by
attempting to appoint John Klink to be the Assistant Secretary of State for
Population, Refugees, and Migration, the plan collapsed in the face of
widespread criticism. Klink had been the Vatican's representative at the UN
for six years and was an opponent of condom use for HIV prevention and
reproductive health services for refugee women. At a February 2005
conference marking the 10th anniversary of the Beijing Conference on the
Status of Women, official U.S. delegates failed in their effort to remove
references to the right to reproductive health on the grounds it referred
to abortion rights but still reaffirmed support for the declarations made
in Beijing.36

But all was not lost for anti-choice supporters. During the January 2006
Congressional holiday recess, Bush appointed the chief of the U.S.
delegation, Ellen Sauerbrey, a former Bush campaign worker and anti-choice
representative at the UN, to the State Department position he tried to fill
with John Klink. Like other recess appointments, this one occurred without
the conventional approval of Congress. Women's health and human rights
advocates worldwide expressed outrage, but the deed was done. Since her
appointment, Sauerbrey has been immersed in refugee issues and has not been
visible at UN events dealing with reproductive rights.

In November of 2005 the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), an 18-member
group that monitors the implementation of the UN's human rights covenants,
decided in its first abortion case, KL v. Peru, that abortion is a
human right. This decision affirmed the work of international women's
health advocates who have been describing the discrimination and
deprivation many women experience across the globe as the result solely of
their being women.

The UNHRC decision sent anti-choice NGOs into tailspins. Austin Ruse
stubbornly declared in his Friday Fax that the committee's decision was not
only an example of flawed reasoning but was also non-binding.37

Not so, says Luisa Cabal, Director of the International Legal Program at
the Center for Reproductive Rights, one of the groups that brought the case
before the Committee.

"We are thrilled that the UNHRC has ruled in favor of protecting women's
most essential human rights. Every woman who lives in any of the 154
countries that are party to this treaty - including the U.S. - now has a
legal tool to use in defense of her rights. This ruling establishes that it
is not enough to just grant a right on paper. Where abortion is legal it is
governments' duty to ensure that women have access to it.38

Progressive advocacy groups such as Sexual Information and Education
Council of the United States, Human Rights Watch, Catholics for a Free
Choice, and International Planned Parenthood Federation conscientiously
monitor conservative trends.39 Several U.S.-based women's groups
participate in international networks like the International Women's Health
Coalition, founded in 1984, which calls for a broad platform of
reproductive justice for all women.40 These networks have become
skilled in
anticipating and confronting conservative tactics.

An appeal to basic human rights for women exposes some fundamental
differences between the international human rights community and the U.S.
Christian Right. Increasingly, women's health and human rights groups are
recognizing their commonalities and now frame women's access to health
services as a human right. In contrast, conservative NGOs, representing
U.S.-based Christian Right groups, seek to reinforce traditional gender
roles, restrict women's access to abortion services, and deny whole
populations accurate sexuality education. These restrictions could be seen
as problematic in a human rights framework.

The current UN agenda, articulated in its Millennium Development Goals,
focuses on the pressing social needs of our time, such as the eradication
of childhood poverty and the control of deadly infectious disease.
Anti-choice NGOs have a much more narrow and controversial set of issues
that may be incompatible with the UN goals. Their positions reflect a
desire for control over women and children's lives and the belief that
their set of values is applicable everywhere in the world. These issues
move their leaders to call for the defunding of such well-respected
programs as UNICEF or to insist that the United States not ratify CEDAW,
the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination
Against Women.

Despite criticism from the United States, the United Nations remains an
institution for global cooperation that reflects the views of its member
states. The United Nations continues to maintain programs improving women
and children's health and welfare across the globe.

Conclusion

In recent years conservative, anti-choice NGOs from the United States
have been targeting the United Nations with increased vigor. Such groups
have entered the UN system with big goals, seeking to alter the direction
and outcomes of decisions affecting reproductive justice and human rights.
They have tried to impose a narrow moral frame for sexuality on the world
at large and have made substantial progress towards the goal of making
"pro-family" and "pro-life" household words across the globe. They are
challenging the UN's commitment to necessary comprehensive health education
for girls and access to vital reproductive services for women the world
over.

What have conservative NGOs accomplished? Although these groups continue
to claim victory in a number of areas, their major scuffles have mostly
taken place over the wording of documents. There has been some success in
limiting U.S. funds for UN-related programs, especially around issues of
sexuality, but the real clout for these changes likely came from the Bush
Administration itself.

Many direct interventions by the Bush Administration take place through
its influence on Congress and oversight of the State Department, the agency
responsible for sending the U.S. delegation to the UN. Examples of such
policies are: the global gag rule, limiting U.S. contributions to
international funds to Fight AIDS, refusing to support the UN's HIV
prevention strategies if they target "undesirables" like sex workers, and
insisting on abstinence-only education for everyone.

By comparison, actual influence on the work of the huge bureaucracy that
is the UN by groups like C-Fam, United Families International and the
National Right to Life Committee may seem relatively minor. To close
observers at the UN, however, conservative NGOs interfere with the
already-prolonged process of consensus building and decision making that is
the bulk of the work at UN gatherings worldwide. They are learning to
mobilize conservatives from the official delegations of other UN member
nations. These groups tout their behavior as successes through the media
outlets of the Christian Right, providing some fuel for the antiabortion
and "pro-family" passions at home. And they use the forum of the UN to
train volunteers whose sometimes large numbers give the impression
of powerful organizations. But the work of conservative NGOs at the UN has
been primarily to reinforce Bush's anti-abortion and abstinence-only
messages in an international arena.

Having both NGO and state actors clamoring against reproductive freedoms
at the UN might well threaten the future of UN programs. However, it is
clear that nearly all the initiative behind these activities comes from the
U.S. Christian Right. Although its opinions may be similar to these NGOs,
the increasingly anti-choice position of the U.S. delegation has only
served to isolate it at times from other member states.

We should not forget that, loud as they may be at the UN, the views of
these NGOs do not represent the majority opinion on women's issues in the
United States.

Because mainstream media in this country do not cover developments at
the UN in the detailed way Christian media do, many U.S. residents remain
unaware of these developments and their potential impact. As Jennifer
Butler has suggested, not just progressives but also liberals and moderates
should be concerned to learn that the attempts to insert "pro-family"
policies at the UN have interfered with realizing laudable goals such as
the protection of universal human rights or the public health and welfare
of humankind. In 2002 she predicted:

"If the United States continues to provide a platform for the Christian
Right at international meetings, then in the next three to eight years we
may see the advances made by human rights activists over the past two
decades undermined, or at least stalled.41"

Conservative forces active at the UN recognize the value of supporting
multiple strategies simultaneously. They cultivate personal relationships
with potential allies at United Nations gatherings that were designed with
very different goals from their own. They imagine themselves capable of
influencing global institutions and are trying to make their mark on this
one. The United Nations could reach its laudable goals sooner with less
interference from a small but vocal group of dissenting NGOs, including a
core of groups from the United States.

Increased attention to the NGO Trojan Horse at the UN could help
forestall a more consequential assault on reproductive freedoms both at
home and abroad.

Article Notes

1 "An Urgent Appeal to get Involved in Politics: Public Service a
Ministry to Protect the ‘Least of our Brethren And Strengthen the Family',
"a speech at the Vatican Conference on Globalization, Economy and Family,
Vatican City, November 2000.
http://priestsforlife.org/government/chrissmithspeech.htm.

6 PRA defines the U.S. political Right as a wide range of institutions,
individuals, and social movements that defend unfair power and privilege
for some and oppose full social and economic justice for all.

Some Resources for Tracking International Reproductive Justice Issues

Bush's Other War: The Assault on Women's Sexual and Reproductive
Health and Rights
The International Women's Health Coalition publishes a regularly updated
online compendium of U.S. foreign policy attacks on women and families.
Offers useful email alerts. Home to the International Sexual and
Reproductive Rights Coalition.
http://www.iwhc.org/resources/bushsotherwar/index.cfm

Bad Faith at the UN : Drawing Back the Curtain on the Catholic Family
and Human Rights Institute

Bad Faith Makes Bad Politics: The Culture of Life Foundation on Capitol
Hill The Catholic Church at the United Nations: Church or State? The United Nations Population Fund in China: A Catalyst for Change
These reports are samples of the offerings from Catholics for a Free
Choice, the national advocacy organization of a Catholic voice in the
reproductive justice movement, is an NGO at the UN and a watchdog of groups
like C-Fam and Human Life International. Home of the campaign to change the
status of the Vatican at the UN. http://www.catholicsforchoice.orghttp://www.seechange.org

The PUSH Journal
A free, customized news service for journalists and others, sending daily
email updates on reproductive and sexual health issues around the world.
Cosponsored by UNFPA, The Communications Consortium Media
Center, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. http://www.pushjournal.org

Guttmacher Policy Review

International Family Planning Perspectives

Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health
Two well respected, peer-reviewed journals published by the Guttmacher
Institute on developing countries and the industrialized world,
respectively. Also, free purpose-made presentations in pdf and PowerPoint
on a variety of sexual and reproductive health issues. http://www.guttmacher.org

SIECUS International Right-Wing Watch
The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States has an
international office that houses multiple publications - a quarterly
newsletter, and a listserv about international attacks on reproductive
justice. It has published on international issues in collaboration
with Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the International Planned
Parenthood Federation. http://www.siecus.org/inter

The largest conservative women's political organization in the United
States maintains an anti-feminist agenda based "on Biblical principles."
Founder Beverly LaHaye has now gone broadband with her radio shows and
videos which support the sanctity of the family, oppose abortion, and
attack groups like SIECUS. NGO at the UN.

The Washington public policy arm of Focus on the Family, this group is a
registered NGO with the UN. Run by former conservative Louisiana legislator
Tony Perkins, the FRC maintains a primary interest in human sexuality
and bioethics alongside weighing in on many other issues. Publishes voter
scorecards and action guides.

A hard-line conservative Roman Catholic resource and training ground for
anti-abortion activists with offices in 59 countries. Founder Rev. Paul
Marx has claimed that Jews run the abortion movement. When aggressive
tactics prevented HLI from gaining NGO status, they created C-FAM to
maintain a UN watchdog presence and the Population Research Institute to
frame their messages.

Revivalist-based evangelical chastity renewal program for adolescents.
Faith-based initiative federal funding was curtailed in the United States
after an ACLU intervention. Offices in the UK and South Africa.

National Right to Life Committee
512 10th St. NW
Washington, DC 20004
(202) 626-8800 http://www.nrlc.org

While the NRLC's mission has always been to advocate for the end to
legalized abortion in the United States, its publishing and advertising
arm, the National Right to Life Educational Trust Fund, has been involved
internationally as an NGO at the UN since 1999.

Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See
to the United Nations
25 East 39th Street
New York, NY 10016-0903
(212) 370-7885 http://www.holyseemission.org

As a recognized sovereign state, the Vatican has maintained its
permanent observer status at the UN since 1964, advocating for a range of
social justice issues such as the eradication of poverty and world peace.
At the same time it also represents the Roman Catholic Church's
conservative positions on matters of human sexuality and end-of-life issues
like euthanasia and suicide.

Founded by HLI's Rev. Paul Marx, this "think tank" has largely been a
voice box for its president Steven Mosher who in a fundraising letter has
said he hopes to "drive the final nail into the coffin of UN population
fund abortionists." A central campaign has been to defund UNFPA itself by
lobbying Congress to withhold U.S. contributions.

Despite being housed in offices far from New York, UFI maintains an
active presence at UN conferences and vigorously advises other
anti-abortion, "pro-family" NGOs. They have distributed their "The
Pro-Family U.N. Negotiating Guide" to all UN delegates.

World Family Policy Center
515 JRCB
J Reuben Clark Law School
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
(801) 422-5192 http://www.law2.byu.edu/wfpc/

Designed to support "pro-family" NGOs and UN delegates from its location
at Brigham Young University, the WFPC has provided a megaphone to its
managing director on leave, Richard Wilkins and a chance for Mormons to
become involved with international family policy. Wilkins headed the
planning team that organized the Doha International Conference for the
Family.